Indications Hint That Northwest Strike Won't End Soon

With No Talks, Flights Canceled And Pilots Go Home

MINNEAPOLIS — The chances of a brief walkout by Northwest Airlines pilots quickly evaporated Saturday as the union and company negotiators failed to meet and the union called off a standby order, sending its pilots home.

When the 6,200-member union struck late Friday against the nation's fourth-largest air carrier, it had put its pilots on standby until noon Saturday in case talks put the brakes on the strike.

The airline then canceled all its flights from Sunday through Tuesday. With the pilots dispersed, it will be harder to put the airline back in business after a deal.

Just as the strike was announced, President Clinton issued a statement saying he would not intervene as he did in an American Airlines pilots strike last year. He urged the sides to work harder to reach an accord.

But since the negotiations collapsed hours before the strike deadline, the pilots and the airline have traded barbs, and conflicting versions of events, reflecting the deep divide between them.

"This is a big, big disappointment. The company is not even in sight," said Susan Welch, a Northwest pilot and a union spokeswoman, referring to Northwest's failure to contact the pilots.

Northwest officials said they were ready to talk. Likewise, they disputed the union's claim that it had made a last-minute counterproposal to which the company had not replied.

"It is disappointing because it seems like a game, and this is not a game," said Marta Laughlin, a Northwest official, who added that the union had seemed intent on shutting down the airline.

The carrier and the pilots, members of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), seem stuck on two issues: pay and job security.

The company said its pay package would have pushed the average Northwest pilot's salary higher than similar salaries at the nation's three largest airlines. But the union, citing concessions its members made in 1993 when the airline faced bankruptcy, called the pay raises "insulting."

The gap on pay between the union and company is not wide.

The union wants a raise of 15 percent over five years, but it wants the increase to begin with 1996, when the last contract expired. The airline, according to the union, in its last offer proposed a 9 percent pay hike over four years, starting this year.

The union and company disagree over how much the average Northwest pilot earns. The company says the figure is about $13,000 a year, while the union says it is about $120,000.

Northwest's top-ranking captains are the industry's highest-paid, earning about $195,000 a year, according to figures from Aviation Information Resources Inc., an Atlanta-based firm.

Driving the pilots' job-security fears is the airline's increasing use of jets by the airline's regional commuter partners that serve its hubs. The pilots want Northwest to limit the size and number of regional jets it uses. Pilots fear increasing use of regional jets will take away their jobs.

Northwest proposed a no-layoff guarantee for current pilots covered by the new contract and a less strict formula for using regional jets. The union said such a deal could purge hundreds of jobs.

The airline has a strike fund of up to $3 billion and credit to lean on. Aviation industry analysts say the strike could cost Northwest up to $15 million a day.

After 35 days on strike, pilots who take part in the union's efforts can expect $1,300 a month in strike benefits, said Hank Meyers, a pilot and member of the union's strike committee. The Northwest pilots also can tap into ALPA's $60 million strike fund, he added.

Stretching from Memphis to Detroit and Minneapolis and on to Asia, Northwest carries about 115,000 passengers daily. In many Midwest communities, it is the major, if not only, air link.

Before the strike started, Northwest had canceled 400 flights for Friday and Saturday, giving many passengers time to rearrange their plans. Only 15,000 passengers traveled through Minneapolis on Saturday, down from the usual 80,000, said Jeff Hamiel, executive director of the Metropolitan Airports Commission.

Still, there were problems.

Passengers going from Minneapolis to Chicago, one of Northwest's busiest routes, were told Saturday that the earliest flights available were for Friday.

Ricardo Rodriquez of Mexico City was one of those passengers. Told there were no Chicago-bound flights available, he and eight other colleagues, employees of Aero Mexico, walked away from the Northwest reservations counter at the Twin Cities International Airport and made plans to rent several cars to drive to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

It was the only way, Rodriquez said, that they could connect to flights to Mexico.

The travelers frustrated most by the strike, said Doe Hauser, a reservations agent in suburban Minnetonka, are those who have planned their trips for weeks and months. They are the dream travelers, she said, the vacationers and honeymooners.